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Web server tutorial - Part 1

ScoreBoardFile: File used to store internal server process information. Not all architectures require this. But if yours does (you'll know because this file will be created when you run Apache) then you must ensure that no two invocations of Apache share the same scoreboard file.

ScoreBoardFile /var/run/httpd.scoreboard

In the standard configuration, the server will process this file, srm.conf, and access.conf in that order. The latter two files are now distributed empty, as it is recommended that all directives be kept in a single file for simplicity. The commented-out values below are the built-in defaults. You can have the server ignore these files altogether by using "/dev/null" (for Unix) or "nul" (for Win32) for the arguments to the directives.

ResourceConfig conf/srm.conf

AccessConfig conf/access.conf

Timeout: The number of seconds before receives and sends time out.

Timeout 300

KeepAlive: Whether or not to allow persistent connections (more than one request per connection). Set to "Off" to deactivate. But we keep it :

KeepAlive On

MaxKeepAliveRequests: The maximum number of requests to be allowed during a persistent connection. Set to 0 to allow an unlimited amount. We recommend you leave this number high, for maximum performance.

MaxKeepAliveRequests 100

KeepAliveTimeout: Number of seconds to wait for the next request from the same client on the same connection.

KeepAliveTimeout 15

Server-pool size regulation: Rather than making you guess how many server processes you need, Apache dynamically adapts to the load it sees --- that is, it tries to maintain enough server processes to handle the current load, plus a few spare servers to handle transient load spikes (e.g, multiple simultaneous requests from a single Netscape browser).

It does this by periodically checking how many servers are waiting for a request. If there are fewer than MinSpareServers, it creates a new spare. If there are more than MaxSpareServers, some of the spares die off. The default values are probably OK for most sites.

MinSpareServers 5

MaxSpareServers 20

Number of servers to start initially should be a reasonable ballpark figure.